


Lullaby

by my_angry_angel



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:26:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_angry_angel/pseuds/my_angry_angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint sings Bruce back to sleep following a nightmare</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> The song Clint sings can be found here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcnd55tLCv8

If there was one thing in the world Clint Barton was all too familiar with, it was death. He’d seen more death than any human had any right to, and most of it was caused by his own hand. At first, he told himself that he was doing genuine good by killing these people. The world was a better place without them. But then he made the mistake of getting too close. He killed a man and saw his young children weep as they buried their father. After that, he couldn’t maintain the illusion that life was divided into black and white.

Nightmares plagued his sleep as he remembered making those children grow up without a father. As time passed, variety entered his dreams. He dreamt of kills following that fateful mission, and some before. His sleeping schedule became erratic. No matter how tired he was, he’d always wake after only a few hours and be unable to get back to sleep. He’d lay in bed for hours on end, trying to will himself back to sleep, but it never worked. So he started using the lack of sleep to his advantage. Instead of lying in bed, he’d get up and start doing things.

Another man who’d seen far too much was Bruce. He also had difficulty sleeping, for many of the same reasons, though he told most people it was insomnia. To Clint, however, he told the truth. Unlike Barton, Bruce tended to go for days on end without sleeping. He’d push himself to keep busy, and even during downtime always had his mind on something incredibly complicated, just to keep himself awake. And then, after a while, he’d pass out. Dead to the world for at least half a day. The only thing that could wake him was the alarm. Even with his hearing problems, Clint could hear the alarm just fine, so it had no trouble waking a very tired scientist.

To keep himself busy, Bruce worked in R&D for Stark Industries. He wasn’t officially on the payroll, but as long as he was in the building, he figured he’d make himself useful. Unlike most of the researchers, Banner didn’t have a set workstation, but the other scientists had learned early on to always leave a spot open on the third floor. Nobody knew why, but Bruce refused to work on any other floor. On the one hand, it made him easy to find when the occasion rose. The downside was it was several floors away from his living quarters. There had been too many times when the doors to the elevator opened and someone found Bruce fast asleep on the floor.

Clint’s room was much closer to R&D, and with their budding relationship, Bruce felt comfortable using it to sleep off the exhaustion. So when the archer walked in one day and found his--he didn’t want to say boyfriend yet, but fuck buddies didn’t quite cover what they felt toward each other--asleep in his bed, it didn’t faze him. He stripped down to his boxers, and then went to move Bruce.

The scientist had apparently been in the middle of getting undressed. His shoes were lying askew on the floor, his pants were undone, and his shirt was partially unbuttoned. That seemed to be as far as Banner had gotten before flopping back on the bed, his legs hanging off the side. The physicist was small enough that Clint could easily lift him with without waking him. With Bruce up off the bed, Barton was able to throw the blankets back, then laid him down and finished removing his clothing. He kept a spare pair of sweat pants in the archer’s room, and Clint dragged them out of the drawer and slipped Bruce’s legs into them.

Clint covered the scientist up, then slipped under the blankets with him. “JARVIS--“ he began, but stopped when he saw Bruce’s eyelid flutter. Maybe he wasn’t as deeply asleep as the archer thought. But after a moment, the motion stopped, leaving behind faint flickers as his eyes moved behind their lids. “Sleep well, Bruce,” Clint whispered, pressing his lips to the doctor’s temple. “J, could you get the lights?”

“Of course, sir,” the AI replied politely as the room was plunged into darkness. It wasn’t complete, of course. None of the bedrooms had windows. Or exterior walls. That would be far too insecure for the only organization standing between Earth and a potential alien invasion. Every interior room in the tower had a dim light set in the ceiling. It wasn’t bright enough to keep anybody awake, but it did provide enough light that a person could see outlines after their eyes adjusted. Like light shining through windows in regular houses.

Not long after the lights went out, Bruce started squirming and giving quiet whimpers. Normally, the scientist was silent in his sleep; there were times when Clint worried he’d died in his sleep. So when Bruce started stirring, there was obviously something wrong. Clint slid closer and started running his fingers through Banner’s messy hair, hushing him. Not long after, Bruce woke with a soft gasp, sitting partially up. “Easy there,” Barton murmured soothingly. “It’s okay.”

The scientist laid back down with a shaky sigh. “Sorry,” he whispered after a second. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“It’s fine,” Clint replied after pressing a quick kiss to Bruce’s temple. “Bad dream?”

“Yeah. It happens.” Suddenly, Bruce rolled to cling to Clint, his face buried in the archer’s chest. Clint could feel the physicist shaking.

“It’s okay,” Barton whispered, wrapping his arms around the other man. “It was just a dream.” _Man,_ he thought, _this is_ so _not my forte_. Of course, once he thought about it, it was nobody’s strong suit. Some super-team they were. They could save the world on a daily basis, and he could kill a man a hundred different ways, but each and every member of The Avengers was uniquely unqualified to help someone deal with a nightmare. “You wanna talk about it?” He was pretty sure that’s what you were supposed to say. Not that he needed to ask. Most of Bruce’s nightmares stemmed from what his asshole of a father put him through.

Not surprisingly, Bruce shook his head. He rarely talked about his dreams, usually when Clint caught him talking in his sleep before he woke up. “Just distract me,” Banner whispered. “Read me a book or tell me about the circus or something.”

Clint was silent for a few seconds as he tried to think of a story that would relax the scientist. Then it came to him. On TV and movies, whenever someone had a nightmare, someone would sing a lullaby. Clint didn’t know any lullabies, but he did know Billy Joel. Which was even better. He cleared his throat and started singing softly.

_“Goodnight my angel, time to close your eyes,  
And save these questions for another day.”_

Bruce gave a soft sigh and scooted closer, the tension immediately leaving his body. As Clint sang, the scientist relaxed further, his breathing quieting until Barton couldn’t even hear it.

_“Someday we’ll all be gone,_  
But lullabies go on and on.  
They never die,  
That’s how you and I will be.” 

By the time the last note faded into silence, Bruce was sound asleep once more, his head pillowed on the archer’s shoulder. Clint turned his head and pressed his lips to the other man’s forehead, then laid down and closed his eyes.

He was asleep in seconds.


End file.
